Canadian writer, Margaret Atwood was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Granada earlier this week. The ceremony took place in the Cloister of the Royal Hospital and was attended by numerous members of Granada’s academic and literary community.
Upon her arrival, Atwood expressed her delight at being in Granada, a city she had never visited before. “It is very important for me to be at the University of Granada. I am finding very welcoming people here, I am very grateful for this honour, and I hope to have a wonderful time here.”
For his part, University Rector, Pedro Mercado, highlighted the values that are integral to Atwood’s work, including respect for human rights and environmental protection. “All of Margaret Atwood’s work is a manifestation of that commitment, beyond its artistic merits, so today, for us, it is a great honour and a great pleasure to welcome her into the University as one of our own.”
Mercedes Díaz, the event’s sponsor and a professor in the Department of English and German Philology, went further, saying that for the University of Granada, it is “a dream come true to have been able to bestow this recognition upon an author who has greatly influenced our teaching and research, and who represents the perfect union between intellectual and activist committed to her time and society.”
Margaret Atwood’s speech, which followed, was full of humorous touches and powerful messages. Highly critical of our times and the widespread use of technology for often less than honourable purposes, she warned that the humanities (Literature, History, Philosophy) are under siege in universities and that, in the face of technological advancement, they are labelled as ‘non-essential’ academic disciplines. But she went on to say that, without the humanities, it is impossible to understand ourselves as a civilisation, because the humanities teach us to think clearly, to create, and to understand others. An, iIn this regard, she defended her narrative work, stating that the novel “is the closest way to delve into another person’s soul” and that language conveys both realities and myths that help shape thought and unite people.
She also praised Spain’s current role in the international arena, its parliamentary monarchy, its history, and its stability. She ventured that if our country nurtures the humanities, it could become a sanctuary for preserving language and knowledge.
Dear reader, have you read anything by Margaret Attwood? Among her many great works, the one that stands out the most is The Handmaid’s Tale, Televised in 2017 and banned in the state of Florida, it is a dystopian novel set in a near-future New England, in a patriarchal, totalitarian religious state, the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the US government, and is enforcing religious obedience. The novel explores themes of powerless women in a patriarchal society, and the day to day reality of an living in an authoritarian pseudo-Christian society. If we ever dream of living as God’s kingdom in this world, we do well to remember how easy it is for malign forces to exploit faith. And Margaret Atwood stands out for the skill and the beauty in which she has demonstrated this reality.
Read the story at ideal.es here.
Picture above: 20 June 2022; Margaret Atwood, Author, during the opening night of Collision 2022 at Enercare Centre in Toronto, Canada. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Collision via Sportsfile. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.